Alice down under in Wonder

kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sat Oct 9 05:24:24 PDT 1999


On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 17:43:37 +1000 rc-am <rcollins at netlink.com.au> wrote:


> on the thorny issue of sexism and racism:


> a) no one, least of all those of us who think these are
not a matter of personal whim, would deny that they are racist or sexist...

Angela,

We talked about this a bit on method-and-theory... but i was wondering if you could spell out what you mean here by racism and sexism. I must admit, I tend to use fairly specific and narrow definitions. Following Zizek and Salecl, I've really started to wonder if "calling someone out" for being racist or sexist is such a good strategy. I must emphasize the idea of strategy here. Usually the approach goes like this: if someone is using jargon that has racist or sexist implications, but not direct references, the strategy has been identity that person as a racist or sexist in a public forum. The problem, as Zizek points out, is that this *legitimates* sexist and racist discourse. By responding to it, the speaker can then be empowered to use explicity, knowing and deliberate, racist and sexist comments - which then facilitates identification and transference (thus increasing the popularity of sexist and racist language in politics). I suspect the dynamics are different for each political region. In the US, a high profile person would likely not get away with openly being a racist (advocating slavery for instance) (some things have become so forbidden that they are unpronounceable and, eventually, unthinkable). Although homophobic, sexist, and nationalist rhetoric are still fairly welcome. I might be misjudging the political landscape here by a long shot. I'm thinking of a couple Canadian examples, where political folks have had to step down because of racist insinuations (in particular, the head of the separatist party who blamed the failure of the quebec separatist issue on "the ethnic vote") - and the same thing hasn't happened when sexist or homophobic comments have been made. Forget nationalism.

So my point is - if we use broad definitions of sexism and racism, and we use them, apply them to individuals in a public discourse - doesn't this threaten to make these ideas more widespread. If you are asking me if I'm supporting censorship here - you're damn right. I think people should be free to say these things, but as a strategy, if I was a journalist, I wouldn't report it. I wouldn't pay any attention to someone at all who was making deliberate racist and sexist comments (unless it became widespread, in which case a different strategy would be required). Imagine this: if sexist and racism rhetoric wasn't reported... if people used it and people started to turn their backs, it would first become unpronouceable. Then, it would become unthinkable (what fades from speech fades from memory). This doesn't necessarily mean that the political economy would change... it might... but it would change the rhetoric and the way in which we think about things.

I'm pretty uncertain about all of this and I'd like to talk about it some more.

ken

ps. thanks for the gilroy ref (way back) - I'm using the first chapter of Black Atlantic in my course. I particularly liked his underlying critique of Habermas, which Moshie Postone also notes in a different way and in a different context, that it isn't speech alone that possesses cognitive value. It strikes me that antiphony (call and response) is tremendously important.



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